Re: Package version in PG_VERSION and version()

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 10:23 AM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> Christoph Berg <christoph(dot)berg(at)credativ(dot)de> writes:
>> Re: Michael Paquier 2017-12-15 <CAB7nPqTra6ZkPr0xTmHY0J4gmKwbStbMmaKMa9Kswb2bZxe=yw(at)mail(dot)gmail(dot)com>
>>> Why reinventing the wheel when there is already --with-extra-version
>>> that you can use for the same purpose?
>
>> That modifies the PG version number as such, as what psql is showing
>> on connect. I'd think that is too intrusive.
>
> I'm really pretty much -1 on having two different ways to do very nearly
> the same thing, with the differences determined only by somebody's
> arbitrary choices of where they think the modified version should be
> exposed. IMO, either you think the Debian package version is important
> enough to show, or you don't. (I'd incline to the "don't" side anyway.)

Unfortunately, actually modifying the main version number breaks large
numbers of tools and drivers that think they know what a PostgreSQL
version number looks like, as many people who work for my employer can
testify to from personal experience with a piece of software that
displays a non-default version number. I think --with-extra-version
is therefore badly-designed and probably mostly useless in its current
form, and as Christoph's example shows, it's not really adapted for
the kind of string he wants to add. I don't really care whether we
leave --with-extra-version as-is and add something else for the kind
of thing Christoph wants to do, or whether we add a different thing
that does what he wants to do, but I think it's a very good idea to
provide something along the lines of what he wants.

In short, "the version number is important enough to show" != "the
version number is important enough to break compatibility with large
numbers of tools and drivers".

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company